bparker805

All hail who know more than me when it comes to portable mp3 players!

The plot: The girlfriend's parent's anniversary is coming up and the plan is to buy them a mp3 palyer like the iPod or other brand.

The request: Could you all share some opinions about your experiences regarding price, ease of use (file transfer), duraibilty, and performance. The main requirement is to play music. Video is not a huge deal breaker, But being able to look at pictures is a plus.

The gratitude: Thank you in advance!

Redlemon

How tech-savvy are your GF's parents? Do they already have digitized music, or are you going to include ripping of all of their CDs as part of the gift? Or is most of their music on 78s and wax cylinders?

All that aside, the iPod is king of the hill right now, and therefore accessories and assistance are easiest to get for it. I'd say go with one of them.

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ratbastid

I have an iRiver H340, which I totally love. It has some features that completely blow the iPod out of the water, and the price is slightly lower. That said, the iPod's interface is unbeatable--iRiver did pretty well with this unit's UI and design, but looks-wise and usability-wise, it's no iPod.

It mounts on the desktop as a hard drive, over USB2. So you manage files on it using standard Windows Explorer functions that most everyone is familiar with.

Cynthetiq

I'd buy them the ipod. It's simple its easy and they can have friends who more than likely have them in order to ask questions and etc.

Also, they have the most accessories so if they decide to not want to use it as a portable they can use it on a desk with a speaker setup.

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Halx

Ahh yes, the ipod. If you don't want to explain anything to them, just shove an ipod in their hands.

I have a Sony Walkman MP3 20GB and I love it. I bought it based on style (all black!), shape (smaller footprint than ipod), weight (lighter as well) and battery life (18 hours I think, best for its type). The only thing wrong with it is the proprietary software, much like iTunes. It makes me miss my old Rio, where all I needed to do was drag and drop.

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Cynthetiq

aaah the old Rio how I still love thee.... mine used a single AA battery and had a 1Gb card there at the time. I wonder if the new 4Gb cards would work in it...

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Aurakles

If you don't want to explain anything to anyone, get an iPod. It's simply and sexy (design).

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bparker805

I would like to formally thank everyone for their input, it is very appriciated and will deffinately be used in the final decission making! You guys rock!